
DELIVERED BEFORE THE 


EUPHRADIAN AND CLARIOSOPHIC 


ON THE INFLUENCE OF GOVERNMENT UPON THE 
NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN, 


COLUMBIA, S. C.: 

STEAM-POWER PRESS OP GIBBES & JOHNSTON. 


1855. 












































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ORATION 


DELIVERED BEFORE THE 


EUPHRADIAN AND CLARIOSOPHIC 


SOCIETIES, 


ON THE INFLUENCE OF GOVERNMENT UPON THE 
NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN, 


(X' 


BY F. W. PICKENS, 

II 

A MEMBER OF THE CLARIOSOPHIC SOCIETY. 



A 


* COLUMBIA, S. C.: 

STEAM-POWER PRESS OF GIBBES k JOHNSTON. 






1855 . 









ADDRESS. 


It is related by tbe great Roman historian, that when Tarquinius 
Superbus was asked by his son, Sextus, what was the best mode of 
governing a conquered city, he replied simply by beating down with a 
stick the tallest poppies of his garden. In like manner Herodotus says 
that Periander of Corinth sent an ambassador to Thrasybulus, to ask 
of him what mode of government would render his authority most 
secure and most honorable, and that Thrasybulus answered not a word, 
but went into a cornfield and cut off all the highest and richest ears. 
Periander understood what was meant and acted accordingly, by putting 
to death the leading and most powerful men of the city. 

This illustrates at once, in a simple manner, the striking difference 
between ancient organization and modern civilization. Absolute power 
and physical force were the basis of the former; while there is pervad¬ 
ing all modern society a secret and ^indefinable responsibility to moral 
and intellectual power, which soothes unbidden each sense and sensi¬ 
bility of man. 

Amongst the ancients, their very gods touched the earth, and moved 
upon the affairs of men in mere physical attributes. The strong man 
was the object of their admiration, and they bowed in idolatry before 
Hercules, because his strength enabled him to strangle serpents, as they 
supposed, in his infancy; and worshipped Mars because of his prowess 
in arms. This was the taint of their philosophy, their morals and their 
religion. 

When we look back beyond the age of the Antonines and Trajan— 
that magnificent and gorgeous era of Roman history, when society was 
moulding itself into new forms and about to emerge into a new destiny— 
the wonder is that the philosophy and religion of antiquity stood so 
Jong; and we are now amazed that, under their combined influence? 
mankind made such development as they did. Their imagination and 
refinements of sense were cultivated to the most exquisite degree; and 
the truth is, in taste, in poetry and eloquence, the Greeks at this day 
govern the ^orld. In morals and philosophy, Socrates has had no 
superior as an original thinker; and in ethics and politics, Aristotle 
has been a master mind for others to copy from. So of Homer and 
Demosthenes in poetry and eloquence. 


4 


But, notwithstanding all their transcendent genius and mighty 
works, that vital part of society, their religion and their gods, have 
been swept together from the face of the earth, not with fire and sword, 
but by a profounder and a purer system, a system far more subtle and 
refined, and far better suited to the restless longing of the soul. 

Why is all this, and from whence did it come? 

The Founder of this new system did not come sword in hand to 
desolate with blood and fire, but came in the humility of simple Truth, 
and boldly proclaimed that all the natural tendencies of the human 
heart were wrong—that all previous religion was false. Independent 
of Divinity, the new system announced is so full of truth and wisdom, 
and its Author shows such profound knowledge of the human heart, 
that it at once arrests the deepest emotions of the soul, and touches the 
tenderest sympathies of the human mind. In its early progress all 
society was thrown into commotion. The everlasting hills themselves 
could not seem more securely imbedded than did the old Greek and 
Boman systems, sustained as they were by the world, conquered and 
prostrated under Pretorian bands and emperors, whose absolute and 
unlimited sway have never been equalled upon this earth. Yet, not¬ 
withstanding all this, the new system, which was directly antagonist to 
everything around it, made its way amid convulsions, and struggles, 
and blood and power, travelling in “ the greatness of its strength, con¬ 
quering and to conquer,” until all society was moulded into a new 
form. 

The followers of Plato throughout Greece and at Alexandria were 
the first of the ancient schools to adopt the new system, and claim it as 
a part of their own. The principles of their great founder were less 
repugnant to it than most of the other schools. No such change was 
ever effected in the radical sentiments and feelings of civilized man as 
was produced by the advent of these new and profound doctrines. 
But notwithstanding the innate truth and power of this new system, 
yet we are struck with the great necessity of human government in 
early aid of its progress and final triumph. And in this point of view 
we propose to contemplate the influence of government upon the nature 
and destiny of man. 

If Constantine had not taken Christianity and adopted it as part of 
his government, the wit of man cannot imagine what would have been 
the consequences upon society at this day. And if Henr/ the Eighth 
of England had not determined, from the worst of passions, to create 
himself the head of an independent church, for the purposes of grant- 


5 


ing divorce, no one can tell what might have been the destiny even of 
the Protestant religion. 

Governments themselves form and train up the minds and senti¬ 
ments, and make, as it were, the very nature of those they operate upon. 
True, you occasionally see individual minds that rise up superior to all 
surrounding circumstances, and boldly grasp those great truths which 
stand out as beacons upon the tide, to guide and direct the mariner as 
he floats on the current through the gloom and darkness of human 
events. But the great mass, in their hopes and their joys, in their 
sentiments and in their ideas, are almost entirely controlled and modi¬ 
fied by the governments which have made their impress upon the very 
nature of man himself. 

A great philosopher has likened the mind to a blank sheet of paper, 
ready to receive any idea that may be impressed upon it, and to reflect 
back the impress. The innate ideas, if any there be, that slumber in 
the soul of man are at best but confined to a few, who seem to be of 
the elect and chosen, blessed with a quickening genius that rises supe¬ 
rior to all surrounding circumstances, and looks “ through nature up to 
nature’s God.” Such there may be, but they are few and far apart, 
whose lights tremble here and there, like the rays of fixed stars upon 
the tide of time. It is very much to be doubted whether there has 
ever lived a man whose ideas, and sentiments, and principles have not 
been, more or less, moulded and modified by the government under 
whose power he has been born and reared. True, the brute creation 
have unerring instincts that seldom, if ever, change; but even they 
are modified by climate and by their raising. The camel would be 
helpless and perish on the frozen hills of Lapland; and in like manner 
the reindeer would be useless and famish upon the sands of Arabia. 
But man alone lives and flourishes in every climate—his plastic nature 
adapts itself to all circumstances—he is active and useful under all 
governments, and is a totally different being under different forms and 
under different systems. 

Why is it that the Turk loves to die, sword in hand, under the ban¬ 
ner of the Prophet ? And why is it that the Christian, with equal 
zeal, will follow the cross over fields of blood ? It is because they both 
receive their impulse and impress, and their whole nature is made, from 
the system under which they are born and reared. 

Man is not the creature of climate, nor does the physical world make 
the higher attributes of his nature. The modern Greeks are a low and 
miserable race, and yet they live upon the same hills, and breathe the 
same air as did the Lacedemonians and the Athenians of old. They 


6 


walk daily over those plains under which sleep the mighty dead, and 
the Very stones rise up to reflect back upon them the blush of shame 
and of conscious degradation. The lazy lazzaroni who stretch and 
gape about the streets of modern Rome, and gaz^on the Tarpean rock, 
and stalk over the Capitol Hill and Campus Martius, have even forgot¬ 
ten that the Scipios and the Gracchi once stood there, and diffused 
their moral and intellectual power over the then known world. Why 
is all this ? and w'hence cometh this change in the nature of man ? 
Think you that God, in his wrath, has withered and blasted these the 
fairest regions of earth that he has given as an inheritance to the 
human race ? No! it comes from the profound workings of govern¬ 
ment upon all the qualities and attributes of man. The water is the 
same that those glorious Greeks and Romans of antiquity drank—the 
air is the same—the soil is the same—the mountains and the storms 
are the same—the blood and the muscles and the bones of man are the 
same. But his ideas, his sentiments, his sympathies, his hopes, his 
affections, all those moral and intellectual qualities that make him rise 
and stand forth in the image of his Maker, are crushed and changed 
forever. 

The slow droppings of the rain will, by attrition, wear away into fur¬ 
rows the everlasting granite, and as sure, in the progress of time, does 
the operation of government wear into furrows the heart and the soul 
of man. The Jews, whose history has come down to us from the 
remotest antiquity, more distinctly perhaps than that of any other race, 
fully illustrate the truth of this great proposition. When in Egypt, 
under the Pharaohs, they were a degraded and low race, who made 
u brick without straw/’ and were hewers of wood and drawers of water 
for others. Moses was one of those great and gifted men of the earth 
who rise superior to all circumstances, and he at once perceived the 
base degeneracy of his countrymen. After the Egyptian was slain, he 
fled to the distant mountains, and amid the solitary hills he was en¬ 
gaged for near a half century in deep and silent reflection, preparing 
himself for the mighty task before him. He was there inspired by 
Divinity that “stirs within.” He at last emerged forth, and called 
upon his countrymen to follow. They were at first weak, imbecile and 
faithless, and neither had confidence in him or their God. Under his 
rigid government, by hardship and suffering, they were trained for 
forty years, in the wilderness and amid mountains, until they were 
thoroughly changed in nature. It was not that they were placed under 
a less absolute government, but it was an elevated and spiritual govern¬ 
ment, calling forth their enthusiasm and fortitude—unfolding to them 


7 


the promised land, and exciting their holy fervor by disclosing to them 
that they were the chosen and elect of God. They then came down 
into the plains, and, under the lead of Joshua, were a brave and heroic 
race, conquering and subjugating the nations around them. There was 
a profound philosophy in their institutions, working out a thorough 
change in this wonderful people. They were divided into different 
tribes, with certain local powers to each of self-government; and they 
were the first people to make a division in the powers of state, and lay 
the incipient foundations of municipal government. This excited the 
different tribes to the greatest energy,* and quickened the remote 
branches of society by opening the powers of local government to all, 
and by that, developing the greatest spirit and fortitude in all. This 
made them an active and thinking people, and the possession of power 
made them an aspiring and conquering people; and thus they con¬ 
tinued for ages the great race of the earth. When they held Palestine 
and made Jerusalem the queen city of the world, they were indeed a 
very great people, and developed all those noble qualities which have 
left their impress upon after ages. 

The Pharisees, or great national party, held the doctrine that the 
powers of the priesthood belonged of right to Aaron and his descend¬ 
ants, and that the power of the crown belonged to David and his house, 
but that the supreme authority or sovereignty of the state, in the last 
resort, belonged alone to the whole people of Israel in their national 
assembly as represented in the Sanhedram. This was their ancient 
constitution; and it contained the elements of great development. We 
see in it a rational division and separation of great powers, and the 
recognition of great popular rights in the nation. 

The Sadducees, who were a wealthy and aristocratic party, dissented 
from these fundamental principles, and, being fewest in numbers and 
ambitious of power, called in the aid of Roman arms to overthrow the 
constitution of their country; and Pompey and Antony successively 
placed a usurper upon the throne, who became the pampered tool of 
Roman intrigue in the division and plunder of Judea. The daring- 
deeds and devoted.heroism of the Maccabees would honor any age or 
any country. At length the cruel and bloody reign of Herod crushed 
all vitality in the system, and the people sunk into degenerate imbecil¬ 
ity. Through fraud and division amongst themselves, their whole gov¬ 
ernment became changed, and with that change they lost those high 
qualities which their early leaders and early founders had developed. 
Their seat of government was taken by Pompey and afterwards by 
Titus, more than two thousand years after it was founded. On the 


8 


very ruins of their Holy of Holies, Adrian raised a temple to Jupiter 
Capitolinus, with, the image of a hog carved over the entrance, as an 
insult to the venerable religion of this once fervent and haughty people. 
The very name of Jerusalem was changed, and the iron heel of Pagan 
Rome was upon it for ages. After three hundred years, the Christian 
emperors restored the name, and again raised the people to some con¬ 
sideration. Then the Saracens, in the seventh century, sacked their 
cities, and overran their country, and held it for more than four centu¬ 
ries, when the crusaders took it, and founded a new kingdom. But it 
was finally conquered by the Turks, who have governed it for more 
than five centuries. Their temples and tabernacles and shrines have 
been desecrated and debased by Mahometan barbarism, and they them¬ 
selves have been scattered to the four quarters of the world, the scorn 
and pity of mankind. 

Through all these different changes, we see in the same race a totally 
different people. Although their lineaments are the same, their out¬ 
lines, their form and physical nature may be the same, yet the inner 
man, the sentiments, the spirit—that hidden fire of the soul that burns 
and breathes on all around it—is not the same. Their religion has 
been fixed, and but little changed, since the days of Moses and the 
Levitican laws. It is no change of their religion that has made a 
different moral and intellectual man of the same race in different ages 
of the world. No man can say that the modern Jew, wily and cun¬ 
ning, and occasionally creeping into the highest positions of this 
earth, is the same man that he was in the days of David and Solomon, 
when his haughty mien breathed defiance, and his proud and lofty step 
trod the earth like a conqueror, scorning and contemning the nations 
around him. 

Their elaborate national historian has written their history down to 
the reign of Nero, and in tracing this wonderful race through all their 
changes, it gives us a clearer insight into human nature, perhaps, than 
the records of any other people. Josephus was a warrior too, and de¬ 
fended his country against Vespasian and Titus, and afterwards accepted 
favor from Titus. When the Roman arms overrun the country, and 
scattered his people so that they sought safety even in caves, he took 
protection, and wrote the religious part of his great work to conciliate 
the conquerors. It fills up a space of near four hundred years between 
the Old and New Testament. 

Depressed and scattered as they have been, and moulded over by 
the pressure of different governments for so many centuries, we can 
hardly realize now how great a people they once were, and what high 


9 


virtues and noble bearing they once had. They were the first lawgivers 
and founders of permanent civilization for the world. There is enough 
in the prophecies for six thousand years to inspire them with a confi¬ 
dent belief that they will be gathered from every land, and again 
blessed with a pure and invigorating government; and there is enough 
in their past history to make us feel confident that if ever they are thus 
brought together, they will again exhibit all those great qualities which 
heretofore made them, under their kings, so powerful in their influence 
upon the affairs of the world. 

The Jews, the Greeks and the Homans have made a greater impres¬ 
sion upon the ideas, the sentiments and the laws of the world than all 
other people who have ever lived. The Persians, from Cyrus down to 
the reign of Darius the Third, were a powerful people ; and the mild 
and pious philosophy of their magi cast an overshadowing influence 
over the affairs of the East. In like manner the Egyptians have left 
memorials of their physical power, and vast works of art which impress 
us with the belief of their perseverance and gigantic enterprise. But 
in all the elements of genuine greatness, in the thoughts, in the ideas, 
in the principles which have elevated the human race, no people have 
ever equalled the Jews, the Greeks and the Homans. When we reflect 
how little they understood of the exact sciences, except geometry—how 
little of geology, of chemistry and mineralogy—how little of true 
astronomy, of gravitation and attraction—how little of truthful philoso¬ 
phy—we are struck with the profound influence they have nevertheless 
exercised upon the sentiments, the feelings, the taste, and the thoughts 
of the reflecting portion of all mankind. 

Next to the Jews, the Homan people present us the most distinct in¬ 
fluences of Government upon the sentiments and nature of man. 
Amongst them there was always a great central head in the city, looked 
to for absolute government; and the provinces and distant parts were 
without power or local authority, save what came directly from the 
head. Everything was absorbed in Home, and for more than seven 
hundred years there was no consideration whatever in the parts. 
Julius Csesar was the first to introduce a change in this respect, and he 
conferred privileges upon certain provinces where he wished to use the 
people in the changes he was effecting in the institutions of his 
country. 

Conquest and acquisition grew up to be a fundamental law of their 
empire, from the rape of the Sabines down to the reign of Adrian. 
The nature of their Government made them proud, arrogant, overbear- 


10 


ing and cruel; while their power and control over the world, with the 
splendor of their Government at Iiome, developed all the master pas¬ 
sions—the genius and eloquence to sway mighty Senates, to command 
and lead armies to conquest and power;—and then, in their luxurious 
and magnificent decline, we see all the richness and softness of the 
purest and deepest poetry. 

They were too much engaged in extensive government and power 
ever to be a philosophical people, and in this particular they were far 
excelled by the Greeks. The latter people had comparatively but small 
territories, and were not so much given to the lust of power and con¬ 
quest, and were, therefore, much more absorbed in profound reflection 
and abstract philosophy. The truth is, the Romans had but little 
philosophy, save what they borrowed from the Greek schools. Hence 
it is they produced no man to compare with Socrates, or Plato, or 
Aristotle. Even Cicero, in his “ JSomnmm Scipionis” takes his ideas 
of immortality from Plato’s Phcrdon ; and his conceptions as to our 
planetary system, and the shape of the heavenly bodies, with their daily 
motion making the music of the spheres, were all borrowed from 
Pythagoras. 

But in the practical affairs of life—in great generalship, statesman¬ 
ship, and in enlarged intellectual eloquence announcing the broad 
principles that govern a state or empire—they are without equals. 
The workings of a great system of Government educated them, through 
centuries, for these matters. 

After the Tarquins were expelled for an infamous crime, even the 
domestic virtues took deep root for a time, and the manners and habits 
of this haughty people were modified and softened. 

Individuals are educated by reading, observation and reflection, but 
a nation or a people are alone educated by great events. Those events 
that stand out in the history of a nation or a people make their impress 
upon the public mind, and in fact make national character. The same 
race have totally different characteristics under a republic and under 
an absolute monarchy. It is not that one is less despotic than the 
other—for a republic may often be as despotic as a monarchy, but the 
different forms elicit different qualities, and create a demand for differ¬ 
ent talents. A people who have been in luxury and depotism for ages 
naturally become effeminate and inert; and a people in a republic, 
where the avenues to power are open to all, naturally become active 
and aspiring. So, after the change of her seven Kings, Rome de¬ 
veloped new and different qualities, and her people exhibited a different 
nature. 


11 


With her elections and Tribunes, her people became stormy, and 
factious, and turbulent. When they were conquered by Brennus, they 
made Cammillus a Dictator, and he rescued his country. This was a 
precedent, under a republic, of creating absolute power in one head, 
and made an era in the Government. From the age of the Scipios to 
the Gracchi, the stern and simple virtues prevailed. They were even 
trained to cruelty by their Gladiators ) but it was, nevertheless, their 
heroic age. Their meetings in the Campus Martius was nothing but a 
council of armed men. The people were turbulent, abhorred luxury, 
and were a fierce race, but simple in their manners. 

Their Government was made by a constant struggle between the 
Plebians and Patricians, and consisted of frequent concessions from the 
latter to the former—making a constitutional compromise between the 
great powers of the State, mostly irregular, and creating, in fact, a 
mixture of Aristocracy and Democracy. 

The factions of Sylla and Marius were the exponents of these two 
elements in their Constitution—the former Aristocratic, and the latter 
Democratic. They educated and prepared the people for their far more 
able and subtle successors—the Pompeys and the Caesars. 

Their Government lost its balance and checks from the Tribunes and 
the Senate, and all power was thrown into the hands of an Imperator, 
as a necessary refuge from anarchy and faction. 

The age of the illustrious Catulus and Cato, and Marcus Brutus—of 
Hortensius, and Lucullus, and Cicero—was a marked era in Boman 
life—it was a turning point in Roman affairs. The austerity, and forti¬ 
tude, and patriotism that had marked their character before, began to 
decline. Lucullus was not only a distinguished orator, but a successful 
General, with high administrative talent—strict and accountable in his 
public transactions, yet so refined and luxurious that he gave way be¬ 
fore Pompey. 

The austerity and simplicity of Cato were the relics of a former age 
and, in his desperation, he threw himself upon his sword. 

Cicero had accumulated the learning of ages, and was the master- 
thinker of his day; yet his magnificent villas, as well as those of 
Hortensius, and their luxurious enjoyments, showed the taint of a de¬ 
caying Republic; and his bloody head was exhibited in the Forum as 
the triumph of a new dynasty. 

Marcus Junius Brutus—in whose veins flowed the blood of that 
Junius, who swore vengeance to the Tarquins upon the dagger dripping 
with the blood of Lucretia—was brave and heroic, and yet he, never¬ 
theless, sunk under the tide of that corruption and profligacy which 


12 


was about to sweep over his country, and change forever the very na¬ 
ture of her people. The change in the government was effecting a 
thorough modification in the domestic habits and virtues, feelings and 
sentiments of the people. 

Pompey and Caesar, Anthony, Octavius and Lepidus laid the foun¬ 
dations of a profound alteration in the whole government, and with that 
change, the body politic became enervated and debased. By the 
great events that then happened, the people were educated and trained 
up to the yoke of their coming masters. Their wrists and their ankles 
were being made pliable to the chains and the fetters that were forging. 

Cicero, in his immortal letters, written to intimate friends at this 
period and during his banishment, and in his noble pliillippics against 
Anthony, depicts, with a master hand, the radical change making in the 
entire government, and with it the alteration making in the very nature 
and feelings of the people. His letters give us a nearer and clearer in¬ 
sight into the thoughts and motives of the different actors, and different 
parties and factions, than any historian can give, for they were written 
in the freedom of friendship, and in the most natural and easy manner, 
and by one who understood the philosophy of their system more pro¬ 
foundly than any man of his day, except perhaps, Caesar. By these 
letters we are carried back to the fireside of the Homans—to their 
families—their domestic ties and domestic interests, as well as to their 
Forum and their Senate. 

And it shows how great a thinker he was, that his private letters 
should be handed down to us so perfect, through such revolutions, for 
near two thousand years. Take his works all together, and no man 
has been his equal in giving enlarged ideas and thoughts to the world 
since his day, unless, perhaps, it may be Burke. He it was who first 
announced the great and radical undermining in the government of his 
country. 

When he came forth from his retirement, he had no party to sustain 
him, but stood alone, with no power, save a noble and glorious elo¬ 
quence, and hurled his burning denunciations against Anthony. For 
a time, he turned back the tide, and held a cunning tyrant at bay, 
with armed Legions at his heels. Under these circumstances, at that 
period, he presents a grand moral spectacle, which will command the 
admiration of every age as long as patriotism shall live, and Genius 
shall trim her midnight lamp to cast a brighter light upon the noble 
picture as it stands out on the canvas of history. True, during the 
power of Pompey and Csesar he had taken protection for a short time, 
with a hope, as he says, to avert things, and to give some direction to 


13 


events. Cato, of Utica, censured him for it, and threw himself upon 
his sword rather than survive the usurpation in his government. 

Both these illustrious men were ridiculed in their day by those in 
power and place as theorists and impracticable abstractionists. And 
so, in like manner, are all men who have the sagacity to perceive 
changes made in their Government, by the corrupt and ambitious. 
Men who fawn for popularity, and who love office and place more than 
they do country, are ever ready now, as they were in the days of Cato 
and Cicero, to denounce as theorists, those who have the boldness to 
warn the people of danger and the integrity to proclaim the truth. 

As these great men predicted, the Government of Home was altered 
and with it the whole frame-work of Society was changed, and the very 
sentiments and nature of the people moulded over anew. 

Then came on the absolute reign of the Emperors. We no longer 
see the stormy meetings of their armed freemen in the Campus Martius, 
or their proud and haughty Senate decreeing the law of empire. But 
in the place of the former, we have Praetorian bands conferring office, 
and in place of the latter, we see a Council of eunuchs installed in the 
palace. 

Trajan, Adrian, and the Antonines, were wise, benevolent, and just, 
and developed the resources of the Boman Empire with genius and 
enterprise. Their Government was absolute over all that was then 
known of the world, except the vast quagmires and morasses that 
existed beyond the Danube, to the streams that empty into the Baltic, 
which contained a fierce, unconquered race. 

Under their sway, there was a longer period of peace, at one time, 
than the world has ever enjoyed. No people were ever more wealthy, 
or more prosperous. The arts, and refinements, and luxuries of life 
were cultivated to a higher degree than has ever been under any other 
Government. They slept profoundly for three hundred years, under 
the change of Government, in the arms of Luxury and Despotism, until 
the whole body politic became a paralized mass. 

The valor, the patriotism, and stern simplicity of the Boman citizen, 
in the proud and palmy days of the Bepublic, were gone, and gone for¬ 
ever. The Government had usurped all their rights and powers, and 
with that they lost their insentives, their spirit, and their enegy, and 
became a totally different people. Their sentiments and thoughts, their 
habits and feelings, individually and collectively, were modified and 
formed over anew. 

No man can read the great history of Gibbon without becoming 
deeply impressed with the profound alteration that the changes in the 


14 


Roman Government made upon the very nature and destiny of man. 
These changes, in fact, made a new race. In many points of view, his 
history has the advantage of Tacitus or Livy, or most other great histo¬ 
ries, in the fact that he wrote of a people and of a country that he was 
not identified with, and he wrote of events and of a people centures 
after they had existed. In these particulars he is greatly the superior 
of Josephus. 

I have selected the Romans and the Jews to illustrate more fully the 
influence of government upon the nature and destiny of man, because 
we have, perhaps, as distinct and intimate knowledge of those two peo¬ 
ple, and their laws, from authentic sources, as of any other people, and 
they stand out more fully upon history. 

The destiny of one race has been fulfilled, and of the other important 
events are predicted, yet to be fulfilled. Through one race has been 
transmitted and handed down to us the Pentateuch with the Levitican 
Laws, having the deepest influence upon the nations of Christendom at 
this day. And the other race have spread the principles of the civil 
law over far more than half the most cultivated parts of the civilized 
world. In fact, the two races combined, have given law to all the most 
refined and intellectual portions of mankind. 

In one particular they differ greatly. The Jews have never changed 
their religion materially, only modifying it according to the different 
governments under which they have been placed. 

The Romans, on the contrary, changed radically their religion. A 
small portion of the Jews withdrew, and were the founders and follow¬ 
ers of the Christian religion, but the nation kept together. The 
Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the body, and many 
doubted the immortality of the soul, while the Pharasees believed both. 
These were great sects, and disputed violently, but never separated from 
the nation, as to their forms of national religion. It may be said to 
have been more a division in society than anything else—the former 
being the more wealthy and aristocratic class, and the latter poorer and 
more humble. 

But the Romans, when they came to dispute about the Christian 
religion, the whole nation entered into it, and was convulsed and agita¬ 
ted. The followers of Plato had established their schools throughout 
Greece, and also at Alexandria, where they were many learned men, 
and they immediately took up and adopted, to a great extent, the new 
faith and its principles. It spread step by step, until the discussion 
took possession of the Empire. Persecution and blood only made it 
more attractive. It had within itself the Divinity of Truth. 


15 


When at last Constantine adopted it, and made it part of his govern¬ 
ment, we have the wonderful spectacle of a mighty nation, or rather a 
world of Pagans, being transformed into Christians, in form at least. 
The magic power of an Emperor’s wand was waved over the land, and 
by enchantment, as it were, the time-honored statues and temples of 
ancient Mythology, consecrated by the devotion of ages, crumbled 
and sunk into the dust of the earth. 

The Cross in the Heavens rose before the entranced vision of Con¬ 
stantine, and he placed it on his banners, with sv rourw v»xa, and made 
it the victorious emblem of Truth. 

The most remarkable part of it is, that although they changed their 
religion, yet it never arrested their downward career as a people. Their 
government remained practically the same. The empire was divided, 
and as they sunk into imbecility, they had the sagacity to perceive the 
change in affairs, and their loss of power if they relied longer upon the 
sword. It was then that the power of the mitre was substituted for 
the sabre. They no longer had the valor and the courage to govern 
their distant provinces by the pike and their legions, and they raised 
up a spiritual power and enthroned it in the chair of the Caesars; and 
under that, although changed in kind, their sway was as absolute as 
ever for centuries. The Goths and Vandals sacked their city and dis¬ 
persed the fossil remains of their Senate; and they sent them back, in 
return, to their barbarian homes, a secret and mysterious government, 
under which they quailed in more abject fear than they had ever done 
before their legions and their cohorts. 

It is a remarkable fact that the physical power of Rome was first 
broken by a hardy and victorious race from further Gaul and the 
regions of the Baltic; and that centuries afterwards, her spiritual power 
over the world was first broken by Luther and his intrepid followers 
from nearly the same regions. And in this point of view the Teutonic 
race have made their deep impress upon modern civilization. 

Even the Goths and Vandals have their merits. We have received 
most of our impressions of them from historians whose countries they 
overran and conquered, and but little justice has been done them. 
With all their barbarism, they were a heroic and independent people, 
and laid the foundations of municipal government in their separate 
interests and independent tribes. The Vandals even swept through 
Africa, and in the year 445 returned to Italy and plundered Rome. 
It was these tribes that established separate local governments, with 
independent rights and powers. It was this commencement of munici¬ 
pal government that gave vitality to masses in large empires, and kept 


16 


alive the spirit and vigor of independence. It is municipal government 
that is the nursery of virtue and freedom. Without it, the supreme 
head absorbs everything, and becomes a mass of despotism and corrup¬ 
tion. It was the influence of these separate tribes that laid the founda¬ 
tions of the German empire; and it was the separate kingdoms, and 
principalities, and dukedoms and states of Germany that first protected 
Luther and his followers in their great moral and religious reform. It 
was the same organization that finally broke the power of Napoleon and 
overthrew his central despotism; and it is in the same states and prin¬ 
cipalities of Germany that we have any hope now for fixed principles 
of independence in Europe. Other powers may make revolutions, but 
it is Germany alone, with her separate reserved sovereignties and muni¬ 
cipal governments, that can fix great landmarks and give us principles 
of chartered liberty. 

The liberty of the masses as a people never lasts. It is chartered 
rights, fixed and established by local governments, identified with peace 
and order, that can alone give permanent law and liberty. France has 
abolished her hereditary peerage, with their territorial or landed inter¬ 
ests, and has made an agrarian division of her lands into small parcels; 
and her provinces are without municipal governments. There can be 
no fixed liberty there. Dynasties may be changed, but it will not settle 
liberty. Paris, with grapeshot, will still govern France. 

In Hungary and Italy there may be some hope from their separate 
provincial governments and states, but Germany is in reality the bul¬ 
wark of modern independence, if there should be any in Europe. Rich 
in her philosophy, her education and universities, her great and learned 
men cannot be crushed forever. The beacon-lights of independence 
may yet burn from her thousand schools and universities, and lead 
Europe in the path of separate local governments, establishing chartered 
and municipal liberty. 

This was the great defect in the Roman system. The empire grew 
to be so extensive, and being without local or municipal governments, 
except such as was sent them from the central power, the provinces 
became enervated, dead masses, hanging like a paralysed limb to the 
body. They thus fell from the trunk, or were an easy prey to conquest. 
When the system was a republic, and confined to smaller territory, it 
exhibited great energy and stimulated all classes. But when it became 
extended, and the government was altogether in the hands of one man, 
there was no quickening energy in the parts—there was no system to 
diffuse and preserve vitality in the extremities, and congestion of the 
head followed of necessity. Under this system, the people grew inert 


IT 


and effeminate as compared with the more exciting days of the repub¬ 
lic, when employment in the stirring occupation of government and 
arms filled their minds. They grew wealthy and indulgent, and, to fill 
up their idle moments, they entered largely into the disputations of the 
schools. The Greek language and Greek philosophy were studied, and 
even Cato of Utica, after first denouncing both as effeminate, became 
imbued with Greek scholarship. After the change of government and 
the establishment of the empire, Greek literature, with her ethics and 
philosophy, were diffused throughout Rome, and may be said to have 
become nationalised. The followers of Plato, who was himself an ex¬ 
pounder of, and commentator upon Socrates, were the ablest, and 
spread more extensively. They collected books and learned men every¬ 
where. When the far deeper sect of the Christians arose and began to 
attract attention, the Roman mind was already prepared to embark with 
enthusiasm upon the doctrines that were advanced by the different 
churches and bishops. They entered with zeal into the contest even 
between the homoousiohs and the homoiousions, and were deeply ab¬ 
sorbed in the various theories as to the Xoyog. Even an emperor, the 
great Constantine, preached sermons as well as fought for the new faith; 
and another emperor, the learned Julian, entered the lists and wrote 
against Christianity. 

The great churches of Alexandria and Antioch would have spread 
the new system far over the East but for the rise of Mohammed. He 
took up the literal doctrines of the Old Testament, as expounded in 
practice by Joshua and Gideon, and followed the example of the Levites 
as to force, when they came out from the worshippers of the golden 
calf, and stood by Moses in his call for those who were “ on the side of 
the Lord,” and drew the sword over the slaughter of three thousand 
who had fallen from the true faith. His mystical dreams and rhapso¬ 
dies were collected into shape by his successors in the form of the 
Koran, and appended to the Old Testament. It had no philosophy or 
morals in it, but inculcated the doctrine that the highest happiness, 
here and hereafter, consisted in mere animal indulgence, with the ex¬ 
ception of wine, and opened up unbridled enjoyments to his followers. 
He reversed the philosophy of Plato and the Greeks, who taught be¬ 
nevolence, and, to a certain extent, subjugation of the passions, and, in 
precept and practice, was the direct antagonist of Christ. The meek¬ 
ness of humility and wisdom was in one, and the arrogance of conquest 
and lust of power was in the other. 

Strange as it may seem, yet his system was eminently suited to the 
people he was called upon to lead at that time. The Byzantine em- 
2 


18 


perors and prelates had, by persecution and oppression, made violent 
feuds and sectarian Christians in the east. The Jews and Nestorians 
had been driven into Persia and Arabia. The mother of Mohammed 
herself was a Jewess, and in early childhood had deeply imbued his 
quick mind with the traditions of her race and the mysteries of her 
religion. The Arabs were an unmixed race, devoted to poetry and 
full of mystical enthusiasm. They were distracted by a great many 
creeds. Many were idolaters, and some attached themselves to Judaism 
and some to Christianity, all full of zeal and controversy. The hegira 
occurred in the first part of the seventh century, and after that, all 
Arabia became united under Mohammed. He swept through the land 
with fire and sword, and established what may be called the government 
of a military religion. His spiritual dreams were for conquest, and to 
establish a rigid government, and they constituted his Koran. Being 
a calculating fanatic himself, it was eminently suited to his fanatical 
followers. It is remarkable that a book of so little philosophy or real 
wisdom should have had such influence upon a large portion of man¬ 
kind. Under its teachings a powerful government was raised up, and 
the successors of Mohammed, with their Saracenic hordes, swept like a 
storm from the tropics over the fairest portions of the earth. They 
destroyed the great Christian Churches of Antioch and Alexandria, 
took the holy land, sacked Jerusalem, and rolled back the tide of Chris¬ 
tian civilization upon the shores of Europe. But for the extraordinary 
rise of this military religious government, the destiny of man in the 
East would have been far different at this day. It is true, the crusaders 
at one time drove them back, and re-conquered Jerusalem, but they 
held it less than ninety years. And now, for more than five hundred 
years, the country where Christianity, and with it the whole basis of 
modern civilization, took its first rise from the impulse of Divinity 
itself, has been under the sway of an entirely different system. And 
the power and the effects of government have been such, that you can 
scarcely discover in the nature of man any traces of the people or the 
race who once watched and nursed those early fires that have since 
illumined the world. 

It was the terrific power of the Saracens and the followers of Mo¬ 
hammed that forced a more intimate union between the secular and 
ecclesiastical power of Borne. It was essential not only to sustain their 
religion but their very race. The union of church and state was as 
natural, at that period, as any other event in history. The East had 
been overrun—the sacred mountains smoked with the fires of vengeance 
kindled by a fierce and bloody race ; and from the very altars and 


19 


temples where the apostles themselves had ministered, rose the incense 
of an unholy faith. The church fell back upon the power of govern¬ 
ment, and the government relied upon the spiritual enthusiasm of the 
churchj and the two combined saved Europe from conquest and deso¬ 
lation. And in these great events, looking back upon them at this 
day, the influence of government upon the destiny and nature of man, 
and his civilization, is as distinctly seen as is the hand of Providence 
upon the physical world around us. As long as the danger of over¬ 
throw was great, and the pressure from without was kept up, the 
church and state were compelled to develope, to a certain extent, dar¬ 
ing and manly virtues with fierce enthusiasm. And hence we see their 
combined influence upon the nature and sentiments of people in those 
peculiar days of the crusader age. When the danger was over, and 
the followers of Mohammed were themselves satiated with conquest and 
plunder, and began to grow imbecile and inactive, then of course the 
Church of Rome fell into corruption and abuses 

When the Roman empire fell to pieces, and their secular power be¬ 
came separated into different governments, the spiritual central power 
still held its mysterious control. When it was no longer sustained by 
the power of absolute emperors, it was forced to cunning, artifice, and 
hypocrisy for a time. There was occasionally, in the spiritual head, 
genius and vast learning, and, with its wonderful and stupendous 
machinery, it held under its power the civilization and the very nature 
of man for centuries. The transcendant talents of Hilderbrand restored 
the power of Rome, and placed it where the Caesars had ever aspired to 
do in their palmiest days. But for the monks, and monasteries, and 
cloisters of the dark ages, most that is known of literature and previous 
civilization would probably have been lost. The sparks of a smothered 
fire were there kept sacred until they burst forth like meteors and 
shooting stars over a world sleeping in darkness. 

It is easy for us to see the errors of the past, but when we survey 
all the circumstances, and examine the powerful workings of govern¬ 
ment, and the mighty events that have controlled man, we cannot but 
be wonderfully struck to see how naturally everything has taken place 
in the unerring progress of time. It was as natural for the Church of 
Rome, long allied as it was with political power, to run into excess and 
corruption, as it was for government itself, when unrestrained, to be¬ 
come corrupt. It was natural, after the fall of the Roman empire and 
its dismemberment, that the church should fall back upon art, supersti¬ 
tion and management to sustain itself, because the power of the secular 
government was no longer in the hands of an absolute emperor. And 


20 


under such, a system, it was entirely natural that a feeble, degenerate 
and hypocritical race should spring up. And in like manner, it was 
natural that the hardy and more masculine race of Germany, nurtured 
by separate local governments, with local interests and local pride, 
should feel restive under the yoke imposed upon them by a degenerate 
and effeminate people. And so likewise of the cantons of Switzerland. 
In their country and under their governments, it was as natural that 
Calvin and Luther should spring up, as it is that the sturdy oak should 
grow in the mountain cove and defy the storm, or that the lion should 
shake his proud main in defiance upon the solitary sands of Africa. 

We are apt to imagine that we could have acted differently in great 
events, but let it be remembered that man himself is but little more 
than the creature of events. There is a destiny that shapes our ends. 
Notwithstanding all this, much may be avoided. Governments are in 
the hands of men. True, circumstances to a great extent make them. 
But with wisdom, virtue and an energetic spirit, they may be guided 
and directed in proper channels. Vigilance, patriotism and activity 
may preserve them from change and decay. We must realize the truth 
that it is through governments the profoundest impressions can be 
made upon the human race for good or for evil. 

It is not merely because man is a Tartar or an Arab that he is wild 
and fierce, or that because he is an Italian or an Armenian that he is 
cunning, weak and effeminate. It is because they have felt for ages 
the impress upon their different races of different forms of government. 
The human body will adapt itself to the bandages and shackles that 
may be thrown around it from early infancy, and so does a government, 
operating through a series of generations upon a particular people, 
mould and form their sentiments, their ideas and their feelings, until it 
finally affects their whole nature. In the remains of animals, of fish 
and of vegetables, and in the foot-prints of birds left in the different 
strata of the earth, we read the nature and history of the vegetable and 
animal kingdoms as distinctly and clearly as if living specimens were 
before us; and so, in like manner, in the records and history of gov¬ 
ernments, we read the nature and sentiments of man as distinctly in 
the power and impress they make upon the human race. 

And if this be true, how deeply important is it to us to know and under¬ 
stand the philosophy of our government—what it is and whither it tends. 
It is a fatal delusion to suppose that any man is exempt from its influence. 
We may be insensible to its present effects, but our children are gradu¬ 
ally trained up and inevitably formed under its influence and power. 
The whole framework of society is deeply affected by its silent and slow 


21 


workings. Under the reign of Augustus, the Roman people retained 
all their previous forms of government, but the spirit and nature of the 
government were entirely changed, and they reposed in quiet under 
the delusion that they still were free. It is thus of every people who 
have gradually lost their liberties. The movements are slow and in¬ 
sensible, but sure and silent. The people are lulled to rest on the 
euthanasia of their rights. They awake from their slumber, and the 
historian records their degeneracy and downfallflong before they them¬ 
selves are aware of it. Such is the progress of corruption and decay. 
Those who foresee the course of events, and warn their country of the 
change in advance and the danger to their institutions, are denounced 
as impracticable and visionary enthusiasts ) and, at the same time, the 
man who loves popularity and place, who is full of address and winning 
words spoken alike to all, who devotes himself to cliques, who uses the 
language of apparent independence, and is, at heart, the humble tool of 
dominant factions—this man is called a practical wise man, and is 
always content with the livery and trappings of office. He, like the 
feather and the cork, floats on the surface, but gives no indication of 
the depth and the strength of the current beneath, undermining the 
institutions and the liberties of his country. 

The tendency of all modern society is to aggregation, where the indi¬ 
vidual man is lost and absorbed amid the masses. Whole communities 
and nations act together, and in their progress, with what is called 
manifest destiny, the responsibilities of man as an individual are no 
longer felt. What a man would shudder to do separately by himself, 
he will do together with others without remorse and without shame. 
The facilities of intimate connection and intercourse—the press, and 
the telegraph, and steam—have brought the aggregate and dominant 
public opinion of an empire or a people to hear down the smaller por¬ 
tions and overshadow all individual independence or separate thought. 
The tendency of this is to hurry us on into a great central vortex where 
all rights and local interests are to become absorbed. The question is 
no longer, are you right ? but are you with the tide that flows on to 
power ? The utilitarian doctrines of Franklin, expounded and enlarged 
by Jeremy Bentham, have made the greatest good of the greatest num¬ 
ber the supreme law of communities. Nothing is thought of but what 
is physically useful. Man is but a cog in the wheel and machinery of 
society. The heart is treated as a mere function of the body. Those 
disinterested feelings which rise up unbidden to enlarge and expand 
the soul are treated with derision. Under this system, imagination 
withers, and all sentiment perishes and dies away. The frenzy for 


22 


money making is assuming the form of a national virtue. The golden 
calf is raised up for worship, and men bow down before it as the chil¬ 
dren of Israel did of old. 

Utilitarianism and political economy may be useful in developing the 
physical resources of a people, but if we wish to develope those qualr 
ties, those principles, those ideas, those thoughts that kindle and glow 
through the pages of history, we must cultivate poetry, arms and elo¬ 
quence. No people ever were a great people unless they were heroic— 
no people ever were a great people unless they had noble principles and 
commanding ideas. It was Greek philosophy and Greek poetry, so 
rich, so rare, so natural, that first gave those burning thoughts and 
ideas to the world which have kindled with enthusiasm the heart of 
man in every age and in every country. It was the sacred light of the 
vestal virgins to guide the worshippers of mind through the trackless 
ages of darkness. These ideas and these thoughts were like the rays 
of the sun falling through the crevices of a dungeon to light the eye 
and warm the heart of man, chained down as he was in the great char¬ 
nel-house of corruption and barbarism for centuries. And so in poli¬ 
tics and government, it was Jewish laws in their Pentateuch, and Jew¬ 
ish institutions, that first laid the foundations upon which all permanent 
civilization has been built—foundations which will defy forever the 
sweeping whirlwind of time itself. And this it is that has made them 
a master race of the earth. The Romans gave us the wise and broad 
principles of the civil law, which has produced a profound effect upon 
the civilization of modern times. And the Pandects of Justinian, with 
the Institutes by Tribonian, will live long after the triumphs of their 
Caesars are forgotten. And so in like manner the English, with their 
Norman blood, have given us the expansive common law, with their 
Magna Charta, which have developed personal rights and defined indi¬ 
vidual liberty as was never done before; and through this they have 
made their impress upon future ages, which will last long after Britan¬ 
nia’s u march o’er the mountain wave” has passed from the memory of 
man. And so, also, if we are to be remembered in after times, it will 
be through our national declaration of political rights and our constitu¬ 
tion, which will be to the separate and local rights of independent com¬ 
munities what the common law of England has been to the separate 
rights of individuals. But we must remember that a great charter de¬ 
fining liberty, if suffered to die from the imbecility of a degenerate race, 
will be but a standing monument of a purer and better race, by which 
to measure our own deep degradation and infamy. 


23 


Blocks of chiseled marble and monuments of everlasting granite may 
rise up like the pyramids of Egypt, and defy the heating storms of cen¬ 
turies—so may the glittering armor of triumphant conquerors flash and 
blaze, like the lightning of the elements, down the stream of time— 
but these and all these can never make a great people. Nor can vast 
and mighty empire do it. Great ideas that expand the mind, that give 
a wider range to the thoughts of man—great principles that elevate the 
soul, that warm the heart, that enlarge the sentiments, that lift man 
from the selfishness of this world, and point his vision to the portals of 
a purer life—these, these are the qualities that make a truly great 
people. 

Many nations, great in conquest, great in the resources of wealth 
and empire, have passed, as it were, from even the remembrance of 
posterity, simply because they have left no great principles, no ideas 
that stand out like those fixed stars that twinkle and glow in the skies, 
to which the hardy mariner can raise his quadrant, and determine his 
latitude and departure amid the storms and the billows of this world’s 
perilous voyage. 




























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